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Voter Suppression Is Treasonous by Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm

posted at HuffingtonPost.com, 05/22/2012

Former Governor of Michigan, Faculty at UC Berkeley, Host of “The War Room with Jennifer Granholm” on Current TV

Excerpt

…It is an affront to our democracy that you need a specific identification to vote for a candidate, but not to finance one. Why is it so easy to buy a government, but becoming so hard to vote for one? Voter suppression laws, overzealous filibuster use, you name it — the Republicans use every tactic they can to stop our democracy from actually selecting the person with the most support. Why do they do this? It seems obvious: when you don’t have winning ideas, you change the rules of the game. When you can’t convince voters that you are the best choice, you restrict their ability to choose…

Full text

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said that every battle is won before it is fought. The Republican Party wants to prevent the battle from happening at all. It’s very shrewd and it’s totally un-American.

In November, five million eligible voters will find it harder to exercise their rights in America — 150 voter suppression laws have been introduced in 30 state legislatures across the country.

The most common tactics: requiring photo ID, restricting registration drives, limiting early voting and imposing onerous residency requirements. Who do these laws most directly affect? The poor, the elderly, minorities and the young. And how do those groups typically vote? Democratic.

It is an affront to our democracy that you need a specific identification to vote for a candidate, but not to finance one.

Why is it so easy to buy a government, but becoming so hard to vote for one?

Voter suppression laws, overzealous filibuster use, you name it — the Republicans use every tactic they can to stop our democracy from actually selecting the person with the most support.

Why do they do this? It seems obvious: when you don’t have winning ideas, you change the rules of the game. When you can’t convince voters that you are the best choice, you restrict their ability to choose.

Efforts to suppress voting are not just selfish. They are not just short-sighted. Voter restriction laws that lead to an outcome based upon process instead of merit might be labeled — I imagine even by our Founding Fathers — as treasonous.

A. Phillip Randolph, who organized the first black labor union, believed that the humblest train porters should have the same power at the ballot box as the mightiest steel baron.

He said, “A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”

And to that, all the people should say, “Amen.”

Cross-posted at “The War Room” blog. Follow Jennifer Granholm on Facebook and Twitter and “The War Room” on Facebook and Twitter. “The War Room with Jennifer Granholm” airs weeknights at 9/8c on Current TV.